Last JFK sibling and envoy Jean Kennedy Smith dies at age of 92
● Praised for role in Northern Irish peace process as US ambassador
Jean Kennedy Smith, the last surviving sibling of President John F Kennedy and a former ambassador to the Republic of Ireland, has died at the age of 92.
Ms Smith died at her home in Manhattan, her daughter Kym told the New York Times.
The eighth of nine children born to Joseph and Rose Kennedy, Ms Smith’s siblings included older brother Joseph Kennedy Jr, killed in action during the Second World War, and Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy, who died in a 1948 plane crash.
Other sibilings were the former president himself, assassinated in 1963, and Senator Robert F Kennedy, murdered in 1968.
Senator Edward Kennedy, the youngest of the Kennedy siblings, died of brain cancer in August 2009 – the same month their sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver died. Ms Smith, who married Kennedy family financial adviser and future White House chief of staff Stephen Edward Smith in 1956, was viewed for much of her life as a quiet sister who shunned the spotlight. In her memoir The Nine of Us, published in 2016, she wrote that for much of the time her childhoodseemed“unexceptional”.
“It is hard for me to fully comprehend that I was growing up with brothers who eventually occupy the highest offices of our nation, including president of the United States,” she explained. “At the time, they were simply my playmates. They were the source of my amusement and the objects of my admiration.”
Ms Smith campaigned for her brothers, travelling the country for then-senator John F Kennedy as he sought the presidency in 1960.
In 1963, she stepped in for a travelling Jacqueline Kennedy and co-hosted a state dinner for the Irish president. The same year, she accompanied her brother – the first Irish Catholic president – on his famous visit to family’s homeland. Their great-grandfather Patrick Kennedy was from Dunganstown in County Wexford.
Three decades later, she was appointed ambassador to the republic by President Bill Clinton, who called her “as Irish as an American can be”.
During her confirmation hearing, she recalled the trip with her brother, describing it as “one of the most moving experiences of my own life”.
As ambassador, Ms Smith played a role in the Northern
Ireland peace process. She helped persuade Clinton to grant a controversial visa in 1994 to Gerry Adams, chief of the Ira-linked Sinn Fein. The decision defied the British government.
Former Congressman Patrick Kennedy, Ms Smith’s nephew, highlighted her role in the peace process as the crux of her “enormous legacy”. She later called criticism of her actions towards the IRA “unfortunate” and said she thought history would credit the Clinton administration with helping the peace process in Northern Ireland.
The then Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern said in 1998 that “it is not an understatement to say that if [the visa for Adams] didn’t happen at the time, perhaps other events may not have fallen into place”.
In 1996, though, Ms Smith had been reprimanded by Secretary of State Warren Christopher for punishing two of her officers who objected to the visa for Adams.
In December 1998, Ms Smith again risked controversy by taking communion in a Protestant cathedral in Dublin, going against the bishops of her Roman Catholic church.
Her decision was a strong personal gesture of support for Irish president Mary Mcaleese, a fellow Catholic who had been criticised by Irish bishops for joining in the Protestant communion service.
“Religion, after all, is about bringing people together,” Ms Smith said.
Ms Smith and her husband had four children, Stephen, William, Amanda and Kym. Her husband died in 1990.